Main entry:

Stevenson, Elizabeth, 1919-1999.

Title & Author:

Park maker : a life of Frederick Law Olmsted / Elizabeth Stevenson ; with a new introduction by the author.

Publication:

New Brunswick [N.J.] : Transaction Publishers, ©2000.

Description:

xxviii, 484 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Notes:
Originally published: New York : Macmillan, ©1977.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 453-469) and index.
Preface: A Search for Olmsted xv -- I. A Boy in the Connecticut Woods 1 -- II. Idler 10 -- III. Sailor 17 -- IV. Company and Solitude 23 -- V. Scientific Farmer 35 -- VI. A Walk in England 53 -- VII. A Visit to Newburgh 63 -- VIII. Journeying South 70 -- IX. New York Streets and Texas Trails 89 -- X. The Back Country 106 -- XI. Yeoman: The Southern Writings 112 -- XII. Editor and Publisher 132 -- XIII. Greensward 154 -- XIV. The Boss of Central Park 170 -- XV. Secretary of the Sanitary Commission 195 -- XVI. The Chief of the Hospital Ships 216 -- XVII. The End of Olmsted's War 226 -- XVIII. Mariposa 247 -- XIX. Between Two Worlds 274 -- XX. A Wider Work 285 -- XXI. A Humane Life 309 -- XXII. Buffetings and Accomplishments 322 -- XXIII. Interlude 337 -- XXIV. Recovery 350 -- XXV. A Liberal Profession 361 -- XXVI. North, South, and West 380 -- XXVII. A Pisgah View 394 -- XXVIII. The End before the End 415.

Summary:

"On April 28, 1858, municipal officials announced the winner of the design contest for a great new park for the people of New York City - Plan no. 33, "Greensward" by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Though the appropriated ground for what was to become Central Park was nothing more than a barren expanse occupied by squatters, in a matter of a few years, Olmsted turned the wasteland into a landscape of coherence, elegance, and beauty." "Olmsted was an American visionary. He foresaw the day when New York and many other growing cities of the mid-nineteenth century would be plagued by what we presently term "urban sprawl." And he was convinced of the critical importance of adapting land for the recreational and contemplative needs of city dwellers before the last remnants of natural terrain were engulfed by "monotonous, straight streets and piles of erect, angular buildings."" "This account of his prodigious life features many of his outstanding landscape projects, including the Biltmore Estate, Prospect Park (Brooklyn), the capitol grounds in Washington, DC, the Boston Park System, the Chicago parks and the Chicago World Fair, as well as measures to preserve the natural settings at Niagara Falls, Yosemite, and the Adirondacks. It traces his early years and describes events that were to form his artistic, intellectual, and deeply humanistic sensibilities. And it restores this lost American hero to his prominent place in history. In addition to being the acknowledged father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted helped shape the political and philosophical climate of America in his own time and today."--BOOK JACKET.

ISBN:

0765806142 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780765806147 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822-1903.
Landscape architects United States Biography.
Landscape architecture United States.
Architectes paysagistes États-Unis Biographies.
Architecture du paysage États-Unis.
Landscape architects.
Landscape architecture.
United States.

Form/genre:

Biographies.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 207385
Call No.: NA44.O51.9 S8 2000
Status: Available